Flowers, Hours, and Showers

Uganda is generally a noisy place. I sat in the flower -filled hotel garden this morning and had difficulty picking up different sounds there was such an avalanche of noise. Birds squeak, chirp, squawk, sing, whistle, crow and cackle. Then there are the sounds always present in the background, brooms sweeping, pots and pans clanging, singing, talking – usually in the local language with odd words in English, TV, children playing, and the slop-slap of flip-flops. There’s a very loud church down the road too – with a slightly manic leader.

This morning we went to church in Kitazigurukwa (try pronouncing it – I’m hopeless!).  We sat in our Sunday best, were introduced to the congregation, and gave our greetings from home – but didn’t have a clue what was going on most of the time.  Moses explained the odd bits. This included a lady asking for donations to buy a smaller lectern because the existing one was too tall (I think the term is ‘go figure’).  After an hour, I asked if I could go with the children when they went out.

What do you think of this, Hope Kids team? There were 61 children aged from 2-11 years, one Sunday school teacher, no physical room, no teaching resources – actually no resources at all. Penelop came out with me to translate and help.  The teacher divided the children into 3 groups according to school class (nursery then P1-P6), then went from group to group while the other children sat under the shade of a tree, waiting patiently for their turn.  We helped by going to one of the other groups. They sang to me, I sang to them, we tried to sing together – with mixed success. There is no playing. Sunday School is for praying and learning the Bible. Bob stayed in the main meeting with Tom, I think they both dozed during the 90minute sermon they didn’t understand.

The children were amazing. We had a good time with them – lots of laughing, and only one instance of disruptive behaviour during the 1 ½ hours. I had huge admiration for the teacher – wow! We went back to the main meeting, and had the fun of the offering auction, where vegetable gifts are sold to the highest bidder.  After that we had communion, then a promotional talk about health insurance. 2½ hours after we arrived, Moses said ‘it is finished’. I wouldn’t have known!

This afternoon we had some time to ourselves, then walked to Moses’s house and played with his children and their friends. Moses and his wife were in town making last minute preparations for the new school term tomorrow.

Last instalment of the shower saga: We’ve now both been almost burnt by scalding hot showers. We prefer the cold ones. It’s an interesting moment when you turn on the tap and wait to jump out of the way. The header tank has a leak which nicely filled Tom’s washbag but he’s made a clever water-catcher out of the bottom of a water bottle. We haven’t worked out where the leak on the floor is coming from.

However, the best bit about the bathroom is our resident guest (Rachel if you’re reading this don’t read on). We have a very pretty gecko who lives on our ceiling. The worst thing about the bathroom is gecko poo.  At first we thought we had a rat…. But our friend comes in and does his business which falls to the floor, or a bottle of shampoo….  I’m so glad I brought a torch!

Tomorrow the work starts but we have had a lovely day’s holiday. 

We are very privileged to be able to come to this beautiful country with its wonderful welcoming people and abundance of wildlife (tiger moths, blue stripy lizards, gorgeous birds today).  We don’t underestimate how lucky we are, and know that now it’s time to support and encourage our friends in their work to help the most vulnerable children in this society.

When free means fees

Today (Saturday) we had a leisurely start – very welcome after all the travelling and early mornings. We’re the only people in the hotel, which feels a bit odd. The manager speaks excellent English and has been very accommodating.  And, we may not have any hot showers this week, but we did have amazing bird spotting opportunities over breakfast. Then we headed to the Global Care office to talk and plan.

We started chatting, and very soon found ourselves treading a familiar, but none the less shocking, conversational path. We talked about what it means to be the most vulnerable people in society. We were told that one of the great things about working for Global Care is having your eyes opened to the depth of people’s suffering. You can live your life in relative comfort without knowing a whole section of society exists. People who live in ramshackle dwellings, with no kitchen or toilet, no water, no source of light, children with no clothes or shoes, people who go to bed (lying uncovered on bare earth) at night, having had nothing to eat all day.  

Global Care supports the most vulnerable children. Children who live at this level of extreme poverty, but also have other pressures. They may be orphans, or have a single parent with HIV or addiction, or disability, or mental illness.  Some children have HIV. Living like this can be very stressful.  Children feel they are not the same as other people. They don’t like mixing with others in public, and if they get the chance to go to school, they think their status as orphans makes them different from other children and they become isolated and withdrawn.

The idea of Universal Primary Education (UPE) is that all children, wherever they are in the world, should be able to access free primary education. In Uganda the reality is that all schools charge fees and children can’t attend unless they have uniform, shoes and stationery.

In Rukungiri there are 158 sponsored children. There used to be 200 but as children grew up, sponsors chose not to renew their sponsorship and stopped their support. There are 2 huge files of children on the waiting list. Sponsorship pays for the items needed to attend school – and the fees. It pays for food and for welfare (such as routine medical needs).  On Monday, the first day back at school after 3 weeks’ holiday, we’ll be very busy as the team have to make sure all the school fees are paid for sponsored children. While we were chatting, a mother came to sort out fees for her child. We’d met her before. She has a 16-year-old disabled daughter who can only be transported by her mother carrying her on her back. So the mother can’t work and has the extra expense of a child with major disability.  How is she supposed to find school fees for her other children?

I’ve heard these stories before – but somehow it feels even worse now there are less sponsors and so much need. Outwardly things appear to be improving in Uganda, and even local people may be unaware of the serious level of poverty some people live in.  For some the poverty cycle hasn’t broken.  Children have no chance of going to school when there is no spare money – and if there were any money, it would go on food. 

I’m sitting outside my lovely room gazing at the most amazing view.  The sun is hot but there is a pleasant cool breeze rustling through the palms at the edge of the lawn.  I’ve just eaten chapatti I saved from breakfast as there was too much, with avocados we bought in the market. Tonight I’m having Tilapia and chips.  Not far away, if we drive to the centre, we pass children digging in a rubbish dump. Somewhere within my view, there will be naked children going to sleep hungry and ill.

 

We can't do everything.

We can't do nothing.

We can do something.

Take me home country roads (Friday)

So we’re here again – in our lovely room at the bottom of the garden at Heritage Country Hotel overlooking an amazing view right across to beautiful high mountains in the distance. We know they’re beautiful because we’ve been before, we can’t actually see them through the mist and rain. I enjoyed a cold shower in the dark as the generator couldn’t be fixed. It seems to be working now, although we’ve been told it can’t work the new electric showers. In the interest of pretending we’re roughing it, we declined for someone to fetch a bowl of warm water down to our room so we can wash in the morning. Tom says cold showers are good for you and I’ll get used to it quickly.

We left home at 2.30am yesterday and had the most uneventful journey we’ve ever had, smooth connection in Brussels (although I had stop Tom from commenting on the yellow T-shirted group whose leaders made sure the rest of us knew they were important missionaries to Uganda). We arrived in Entebbe at 7.30pm and to our amazement someone was waiting for us outside the airport displaying our name – and half an hour later we were at the hotel. Oh yes, with all our cases.

Those of you following us on FB will by now have met Bob the Mouse (#bobthemouse) who has come with us to help tell our story to the children we know, or who are going to get to know us when we’re back! He’s had a great day today…. He’s met Charles who is once again driving us around – I don’t think he has a clue what Bob is doing. We left Entebbe at 8am today and with a couple of stops arrived in Rukungiri at 4pm. Another shock – Charles actually correctly predicted our arrival time (he’s usually 2 hours earlier than we arrive).

Coming back is never predictable. Each time so much has changed. We had wifi last night in the hotel, our food was on time tonight, there are fast new roads (mostly) and electric showers (OK they don’t work).  Then other things are exactly the same.  Everywhere people walk at the side of the main road with trucks thundering past, carrying unbelievable amounts of food/water/ belongings and children.  The lucky ones have a bike or motorbike – though none of them looked very safe. On the way here we passed new hotels in towns, then shacks, huts, sheds, wooden and tin structures,…. allserving as family homes.  We passed lush plains, and dry bare earth with cattle and goats scrabbling for grass in the dust. There is still a huge amount of visible poverty and struggle.

Tomorrow we are meeting Moses and Penlope to plan a programme for our week down South.  And for those interested – yes we met the lovely Penlope’s baby Trissy, and I will bring photos.

Sorry no pictures - technical issues! 

To go, or not to go......?

I visit Uganda as a volunteer, but it seems to me that ‘volunteering abroad’ can have very different meanings.  And…. sometimes I’m challenged to justify spending money visiting a project rather than on the project itself.  If it costs trip fees plus funds to say, run a children’s camp, how do we know the local team couldn’t have found better use for that money investing it in local projects? 

Maybe the biggest problem is the difficulty in assessing the value of volunteer projects – how do you measure them? 

Is a camp judged ‘successful’ or ‘worthwhile’ if the children seem to enjoy it?

Or if the local staff say it is? 

Or if it means 160 children have good food for a week? 

What about less concrete outcomes of a foreign visit like communicating esteem or increasing international understanding? 

Do the parents have a say? Maybe its harvest time and the children are needed at home, or there’s a new classroom needed at a school or toilets, or a community garden, or more local staff to run a project…Lots of volunteer trips involve building or renovating.  Once I ‘helped’ paint a classroom.  I’m sure the local people repainted it after we left. They were perfectly capable of doing it themselves – and much better!  

How many times have you been asked to sponsor someone for a volunteer trip only to discover at least 75% of the money goes on funding trip costs?  

In 2008 we took a play parachute and helped local staff learn ways to use it. In 2015 it comes out most weekends for a community children’s club and goes to schools. Games have evolved to be ‘more Ugandan’ and it’s used for Bible studies and counselling.  Children’s eyes lit up when it appeared this year and it brought squeals of laughter.  Sometimes simple things make a trip ‘worthwhile’. In a culture where adults and children don’t have time to play together, I think that parachute has made a difference.  

At the request of local staff at different projects, the 4^th one went out this year (thanks Rachelle).

Actually I also have a different attitude if I think a trip will be potentially life-changing for the volunteer. After all, spending 2 weeks in Uganda 7 years ago took my life on a very different course, helping me understand the value of child sponsorship and of supporting local staff in sustainable community partnership projects.

The Internet provides seemingly hundreds of opportunities, not only for volunteering abroad, but also for ‘ethical volunteering’.  I think my thoughts align to some extent with the http://www.ethicalvolunteering.org/ guide.  Even better, the Global Care trips I’ve been on provided information and suitable answers to the guide’s 7 questions for volunteers.  Global Care works with local staff to identify suitable volunteer projects aimed at supporting sustainable projects.  We had good trip briefings, knew what was expected of us, and there was clarity about our own expenses - which were separated from camp costs.

However, I hope my love of Uganda and the people I’ve met, for the children we’ve sponsored over the years and for the staff who work with them, will never cloud my judgement.  I hope I’ll always ask ‘is this the right way to spend our money?’… and I’ll hope the answer will be ‘yes’!! 

Children being children

In my last blog I mentioned child sponsorship. So what’s my experience of child sponsorship? And what does Global Care child sponsorship look like?

We’ve sponsored children with Global Care for over 25 years.  We started sponsoring one girl, *Rachel, when she and our youngest son were both 7. They met each other in 2008 during a Volunteer trip to Uganda, when they were both 17.  We met Rachel again when we visited Rukungiri in 2013.  She’s married with a daughter and running a business selling grain. A real love has developed between my family and this Ugandan ‘daughter’ but we are truly humbled by the intense gratitude she shows us.At the camp we saw two children sponsored by  family and church friends.  

We met *Arnold when he was about 5. His father had recently been killed over a land dispute and his mother was struggling to look after her children on her own.  When we met him, we were shown his school bag which contained half an exercise book, a pencil stub, a razor blade to sharpen the pencil and a slice of potato for his lunch.  Arnold is now a healthy teenager – he looked happy and well and it was great to see him enjoying playing football with his friends like any boy his age. 

We also met *Babra, a shy 11 year old who was abandoned at birth on a neighbour’s porch and has suffered physical and emotional abuse.  She’s only in Primary 2 and struggles academically.  The family who took her in have suffered financially with the long dry season this year which has led to loss of income and consequently poor nutrition for the family. However, she attends school fairly regularly and gets a midday meal at school. As the week went on she came out of her shell and by the end of camp she was smiling and laughing with her friends and joining in with games and singing.  We are reassured to know that David, the Global care local children’s worker, watches out for the children. He knows if they haven’t been at school or if there are family troubles.  He knows every child by name.  He makes sure they’re fed and if they’re ill that they have medical attention.  Our Babra was not so shy with David!

We’ve had the tremendous privilege of meeting some of our sponsored children, and watching them grow and mature. In Rachel, we’ve see the outcome of having support for education and access to health services.  Several of the Global Care Ugandan staff were sponsored children themselves and speak very highly of the scheme and opportunities it gave them.   Having received so much they want to give back to the next generation of vulnerable children.

The camp provided an opportunity for sponsored children to have a week of ‘being children’. Away from the pressures and battles of subsistence living, of fighting for survival against the elements, struggling to endure in extreme poverty or with disability and disease, these children were able to simply have fun. 

They laughed at adults making fools

of themselves, enjoyed performing songs and drama, chuckled at the antics of the Mzungus (white people), played on the playground, and raced each other amid giggles and happy screeching.  

They were well fed with three meals a day including a variety of protein and vitamins as well as the inevitable piles of starchy food.  They were loved and cared for.  If they were ill they were given healthcare.  It was a tremendous privilege and joy to be part of this – and to see each child go home with a mattress a cup and a plate thanks to the generosity of our friends and family.

Our team saw sponsorship working in schools partnerships where schools buy land and provide the whole school with food for midday meals. Where new latrines have been built to improve sanitation and encourage girls to attend schools. Where building huts to accommodate staff encourages teachers to work at rural schools.  We’ve seen Global Care partnerships with local communities including projects as diverse as digging wells and providing protected springs, providing HIV counselling and testing, supporting the development of school buildings, and working with volunteer community health workers.

I am unashamedly promoting the work of Global Care because I not only have faith that it works, but I trust the people on the ground in Uganda and the team in the UK. Every time I visit Uganda (this was my fifth trip) I see something that involves a member of the local staff in sacrificially giving of their time – wanting above all to serve the children who they see as their responsibility.  Every time I go, I see more evidence of an organisation working to provide support for sustainable projects and enabling local communities to learn new skills or become self-sufficient.  We read so much negative press about NGOs in Africa, I want to shout for my Ugandan friends who clearly demonstrate that Global Care is good news for the projects it supports.

For more information on child sponsorship please visit: http://www.globalcare.org.uk/sponsor

*Names changed to protect identity

The Cost of Living

While we were in Uganda we heard that my gorgeous sister-in-law had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In Uganda we spent time with friends going through health heartache themselves.  While I don’t want to diminish the enormity of a diagnosis of cancer, my sister-in-law had access to free tests and scans and several consultants, and will have access to a comprehensive treatment programme. Our Ugandan friends were having to fund all their healthcare and for a diagnosis such as cancer, even if services can be found, costs are likely to be prohibitive.

Have you ever looked at health statistics for other countries compared to the UK?  Here’s a few to get you started (from 2013) courtesy of WHO and the World Bank:  

• Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): Uganda  57/61, UK 79/83
•  Probability that a newborn baby will die before reaching age five  (per 1,000 live births): Uganda 66, UK 5
• Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f  (per 1 000 population): Uganda 380/317, UK 88/55

Visit Uganda and you don’t see many older people.  Most families have stories of infant or child death, or death from a preventable/ curable disease.  At camp we had a minute’s silence to remember a sponsored child who had recently died. 

For a rural community the nearest professional health services may be many miles away, people needing to walk or be carried for hours to reach help.  If you’re lucky you can access a bicycle and with money you might afford a motorbike ‘taxi’.  But that’s just the start – you need money to pay for attending a clinic, medication, tests or scans, every night in hospital, surgery, every doctor you see.  If you’re in hospital someone has to look after you – to provide food and do your washing.  Hospitals have areas for relatives to sleep, wash and cook.  And of course your nearest hospital may not provide the specialist care you need – so then there’s more transport and accommodation costs.  

Some healthcare is free…  but the only free clinics we’ve seen weren’t staffed by professional/ trained healthcare workers and medication is scarce. The ‘Global Fund’ provides grants for medication such as antiretroviral therapy (ART) to fight HIV and TB – then you read, ‘Uganda aims to increase coverage of ART to 69 percent of people living with HIV in 2017 from a baseline of 44 percent in 2014’.  Depressing.

We saw a child who lost her feet due to persistent infection and children born with HIV who didn’t have treatment and consequently have on-going health problems. 

We’ve seen children funded by NGOs for a first surgery for congenital problems but then there’s no funding for subsequent surgery – and they have residual deformities and health problems.  When we lost our cases we found all the prescription medications we needed – there was no shortage of drugs, but while the cost was insignificant to us, in some cases one pill can cost half a day’s wages.

And then there’s Global Care.  I was so impressed by local staff.  If children were ill they were taken to clinic. Every day someone took food three times a day to the 6 children admitted to hospital during camp.   Sponsored children have access to medical funds and there is a special fund for major health problems or surgery.  Local staff go out of their way to make sure children are well, and if not, transport them to clinics or hospitals and make sure they have tests, medication or surgery they need. They support families with ill children.

One morning Tom said to me ‘someone wants to see you’.  I turned round and saw a pretty smiling teenager and my heart missed a beat as I recognised *Ekellot. I was telling the team about her on the way up from Kampala as I felt sad thinking about her. I suspected she would have died in the two years since we’d been to Soroti. She had HIV and TB but was seriously depressed and not compliant with her medications.  She was extremely ill, and not improving when we left her even though the local Global Care team were doing all they could to get her medication and watch her taking her pills.  The staff told us that she became too ill to be looked after at the centre and went back to her village. However, the staff had passed her details to TASO (The Aids Support Organisation). TASO provided support and counselling and she became involved in their drama group visiting local schools and youth organisations providing information about HIV/AIDs.  Now she was looking happy and healthy. Yes, I cried! Another girl we know well who has HIV was also looking well and more cheerful than last time we saw her.

Good food, healthcare, transport, love and security, education, working with local communities and support organisations, and overall a commitment to provide for the most vulnerable children, that’s why I support Global Care and why every year we continue with sponsorship.

*name changed and photos not of children written about in this blog! 

Who built the ark?

Since I didn’t get time to write a blog while I was in Uganda, I’ve decided to retrospectively blog about our trip.  Today I‘m going to introduce The Ark.  

According to t’Internet, an ‘ark’ represents something that provides protection and safety.  Think about a group of children needing a safe environment…. and for whom living in Africa makes them particularly vulnerable.  UNICEF say ‘Children with disabilities (CWD) are one of the most marginalized and excluded groups in society’, discriminated against through negative attitudes, inadequate policies and legislation, and often with no rights to healthcare, education and protection.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) claim that ‘Children with disabilities are almost four times more likely to experience violence than non-disabled children’.  In developing countries 90% of CWD do not attend school according to UNESCO.  The UNICEF funded Research study on children with disabilities living in Uganda provide some insight into the situation in Uganda.

Global Care have created a day centre in Soroti, currently caring for 10 CWD.  All The Ark children have physical disabilities, most have mobility issues.  Some have learning disabilities too.  On our visits to Uganda we’ve met many CWD and often been shocked by the way they live.  The children are generally isolated, some locked or hidden away away for hours, or left with relatives and neighbours who don’t care for them properly.  We’ve met guardians who couldn’t work because of looking after a disabled child - further deepening the cycle of poverty and hardship. 

When we arrived at the Soroti Centre this year, having greeted the staff, the next thing I wanted to do was get into The Ark.  We had to finish camp preparations first but then some of us hurried to The Ark. I can’t describe the feeling when I said ‘Hello’ to a child I hadn’t seen for 2 years, and her face was washed with smiles; or when *Simon reached out his arms to be picked up giggling with glee then jumped with excitement as I helped him stand.   *Martha (who is blind) brought tears to my eyes when I stroked her face and she smiled and reached up to touch my hand.   

We all felt emotional as Tom played ‘round and round the garden’ with a blind and deaf child who was previously unresponsive - and she smiled broadly as she was tickled. They are incredibly appealing, responsive, and rewarding children.  I think the whole UK team fell in love with the group and most team members developed a real connection with at least one child.

As the week progressed, we brought the Ark children up to the camp tents where they could listen and watch, or sing and dance.  There was no shortage of volunteers to help carry the children so they could be involved.  We took it in turns to sit with and support these lovable noisy, messy, sometimes difficult to control, children on the mat in the shade.  We managed to help them join in with games and activities. I don’t think any of us will forget the voice singing out ‘Be bold, be strong’ throughout the day or the girl who loved the crafts and wanted her own work folder. My heart skipped when *Acem looked at us and audibly said Hannah’s and my names, mouth and tongue struggling round the words and arms and legs flailing with effort.

These children have such potential – and provide huge reward and joy.  We saw improvements in many of the children from our last visit. I have tremendous awe and respect for the Ugandan team who collect the children each morning and take them home at the end of the day, who feed, change and bathe the children, play with them, talk to them, and teach them songs.

Every time I meet the children in The Ark they challenge me. Challenge my expectations and perceptions, challenge my prejudices and my response to such naked need.  

I know I need to never forget that these 10 are the ‘lucky’ ones, and we need to find ways to fight to improve the situation for many more children with disabilities.  Thank you Global Care for The Ark. Thank you Global Care for a sponsorship scheme that includes children with disabilities. 

*names changed to protect identities